Westerland Nations
This article is about Source Land Nations, which are part of the Source Lands Setting. Specifically, this article contains information relating specifically to the nations of the Westerlands, which is a continent in the setting, that is largely inspired by Medieval Central-, Western-, Southern- and Northern Europe. List of Nations A list of all Westerland Nations, across all currently explored ages and eras. * Orlais * Nordmar * Rivera * Novera * The Mark Lands * The Carnala Republics * Estheim * Rehnvar * Avalon * The Westerland Empire (pre-Feudal divide) Imperial Era See The Westerland Empire for details on the Westerlands during its Imperial Era. This section of the article will eventually be expanded upon, but currently that is all we have! Early Post-Imperial Era During the early Post-Imperial Era, the proto-nations of the Westerlands had experienced subjugation under The Westerland Empire, but eventually a tendency to place value in ethnicity and local culture above actual nationality arose throughout the Westerlands. A Divided World The Westerlands consisted of swathes of territories that had been colonized by The Westerland Empire, and in some cases, subjugated. However, the people who did the actual colonization were not people from the core settlements of the Empire, but rather frontiersmen and those who already lived in the regions that the Empire eventually included into their massive territory. The Principalities The Westerland Empire had the Westerland Nation divided into a number of Provinces: * Orlais * Rivera * Novera * Dussante * Rehnvar * The North-Mark (later known as "The Mark Lands") * Nordmar (not actually part of the Empire) * Carnala * and Estheim (not a Province, but mentioned here for good measure) Each of these Provinces was sub-divided into a large number of Principalities, as the Provinces were too barren and sparsely populated to govern from the main seat of the Province. It was often the sons of the Provincial Governor who ruled these Principalities, which were essentially "sub-governorships". These Principalities operated, largely as entirely sovereign nations, but because most of the Princes (rulers of a Principality are named as such) shared common ancestry, it was natural for them to remain loyal to the original Principality, which was the original Imperial seat in the Province. The People of the Provinces Outside of Estheim, some people were Riverans, some were Orlesians and some were Noverans, etc., though perhaps they were not originally identified as such, and used other names for their shared cultural heritages back then, but the end result is the same. These people were not "the Nation of Orlais", rather they were "Orlesians", and the rulers of the many dozens of sovereign Orlesian Nations were all beholden to the King of Orlais, either because of shared ancestry or simply because it was the way things were. Note that the Provincial Governors, or rather who ended up ruling the former Provincial Seats, styled themselves as Kings after the fall of the Empire. Sovereign Nations Just because the rulers of a given people were beholden to their King, it didn't mean that they necessarily took orders from the King. The King was an important person, whom they respected and who basically was the paragon of the respective culture and people. He was what the other rulers measured themselves against, and the one who was expected to call all the rulers to arms if there was an attack against their people from outside. The King also had other duties, but he did not rule the Orlesian Nations, he only ruled his own nation, which was typically the largest with the best infrastructure, due to having been the Original Imperial Seat, once upon a time. Imperial Heritage All Westerlanders know that their culture and their people was freed from tyranny by the Empire. The Empire never truly died, and while it has effectively lost control of all of its people and provinces, the Westerlanders still acknowledge that the only Empire that will ever claim the Westerlands as its domain, is the Westerland Empire, which is ruled by Estheim. That doesn't mean that Estheim has any particular general authority over the individual nations, but the word of the Emperor still weighs heavily in this time period.